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The Commission’s Chairman talks to IFLR’s John Crabb about the need to balance derivatives market regulation and financial system stability with economic growth and prosperity

The new Investment Services and Activities and Regulated Markets Law 87(I)/2017 (the IS Law), which implements the revised EU Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid II) in Cyprus, will enter into force on January 3 2018. In preparation, the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) has issued guidance to regulated entities advising them of the more rigorous product governance requirements which will apply under the new law. The product governance requirements under Mifid II are set out in articles 17(3) and 25(2) of the IS Law, chapter III of Commission Delegated Directive (EU) 2017/593 and European Securities and Markets Authority (Esma) guidelines document Esma35-43/620.

Increased tax transparency obligations on private companies may actually make it easier to be IPO ready

Regulatory enforcement and related litigation in the UK have evolved significantly since the financial crisis

The market is pondering what life after the benchmark will look like, including possible replacements and the impact on future and updated bond programmes

The Diet passed the Housing Rental Business Act (an official translation is yet to be determined) on June 9 2017. The Act, which will take effect in June 2018, defines and regulates vacation rental businesses such as Airbnb.

In August 2017, the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources introduced a new regulation which revoked its previous controversial (and short-lived) regulation which had required that the ministry's approval be obtained by sponsors of independent power producers (IPP) before executing any share transfer or change of the IPP's board of directors or commissioners.

In 2014 the Irish parliament passed the Merchant Shipping (Registration of Ships) Act 2014 (the Act) to update the regime for the registration of Irish ships and the regime for registering mortgages over ships. It is intended that the new regime will provide a more efficient, user friendly and accessible regime for commercial ship owners and those involved in financing the construction and purchase of vessels. Among other things the Act provides for the establishment of an electronic ship ownership and mortgage register. It preserves all of the basic protections under the existing regime for banks which have a mortgage over commercial ships. With the exception of one provision, however, the Act has not yet been commenced. Given the potential for the further development of shipping finance in Ireland, it is hoped that the government will soon implement it.

Initial coin offerings (ICOs) are now the focus of both the public's and the regulator's attention. ICOs are a digitalised method of raising capital in which an organisation issues tradable digital units (tokens) to finance a specific project or to develop it further. They are exclusively used to fund early stage projects of startups, often without a clear track record and with unclear success probability. In the course of the offering, the investor receives a token from the issuing organisation in exchange for cryptocurrencies (for example, bitcoin) or standard currencies (also referred to as fiat money). Tokens are created on a blockchain and exist as tradable digital units on distributed ledgers as a part of a protocol. For example, the Ethereum blockchain provides not only the cryptocurrency Ether, but also a platform to write smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain, which makes it possible for market participants to easily generate and issue their own tokens, mostly on the basis of the ERC-20 token standard.

The country is again amending regulations applicable to offerings of foreign funds to qualified investors. The changes should be positive - with some notable exceptions